Achieving success leads to a better life, everyone has their own strengths and goals. Fortunately, we are blessed to be living in an age where everything is far easier than it was decades- to even centuries ago. All thanks to those who strived for a better future. Many people from vast lands ultimately made the very world we live in a better place. They’ve all left torches for us to keep igniting, the torch of advancing human society. And now, looking at the present time, we’ve really achieved so much in just 24 years, since the start of the 21st century.
So, just how? How did we get here? How is it possible for us to achieve advancements in such a short amount of time? HOLD UP, why did I say short? 24 years is a LOOONG time, but… in this context however, we’ve been making big steps of advancements in long intervals of decades, centuries, maybe even a millennium! Now take a look back at the word “maybe”, well, how convenient, we don’t need to use that word BECAUSE! Take for example, the invention of algebra and algorithms, introduced by Muhammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī in the 9th century. Yes, it was a millennium ago, wow I love using this word. Carrying on with our main topic. Why am I emphasizing on this word so much? It’s because it took us a thousand years from theories to practicality in putting this knowledge into something remarkable. Specifically, (drum rolls please) … (badadauddadadada DUM)- ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE!
Lately around 1 year ago the world has been surged by the sudden rise of AI. It mainly started widespread with Chat GPT. An AI so powerful it was capable of formulating thoughts and answers as if it was actually a real person talking. The fluidity in its art of constructing natural flowing humanlike sentences left many people to believe the AI machine uprising was slowly and inadvertently starting. Jokes aside, people were blown by how good it was. Even I was in disbelief by how easy it was to finally finish my essays! Yes, I confess, I used to ask AI to make my essays back when Chat GPT was fresh… NOT THIS ONE THOUGH, now I only use AI as a source of knowledge to make my writing material credible, and not uh… not condensed with full on yapping.
Now, with all this AI talk… What has it done for Indonesia? How did it impact our beloved red and white country? To understand it all, I’ll take you way back about the relationship between AI and Indonesia. Before AI was even a word uttered in Indonesia, we started our humble beginnings with the introduction of computer science starting from the 70’s to 90’s. Universities such as ITB (Institut Teknologi Bandung) and UI (Universitas Indonesia) were the catalysts for the digital revolution era in our country. It is because they began offering computer science programs. Although during this time, AI was leaned more towards being a theoretical topic rather than a practical one, it does make sense though, considering we had such limited research due to our equipment and funding. Now, onto the juicy part, around the 80’s, AI was experiencing its first “BOOOOOM” with programs designed to mimic human decision-making. It was called Expert Systems. However, during AI’s first absolute burst, we were still chilling on basic computing infrastructure and digital literacy. The bandwagon was still fresh but we didn’t hop in it just yet… were hopping into the AI Winter period first.
Before we proceed, Sean, care to explain what does AI winter even mean? To clear any misunderstandings, AI Winter is a phrase used to describe the reduced funding and interest in AI research. This phase happened in the 80’s till 90’s. The decline was caused by unrealistic expectations and sluggish progress in AI. Although the world halted into a static stance for AI research, Indonesia being under Suharto’s New Order from 1967 till 1998 was experiencing a massive influx of growth economically. Industrialization was also rapidly increasing like wildfire. Our country was completely locked in with investments towards telecommunications, banking and automation in manufacturing. Little did we know that all these investments will slowly become the framework for future AI integration. You see, we unknowingly paved a road towards quality-of-life improvement ourselves, that’s pretty cool if I do say so myself. However, in this period, we still heed little attention towards AI-related topics. Only a few academic institutions explore it like machine learning and pattern recognition. Phew, that was a lot to process huh? Take a breather, grab a glass of water while you’re at it because… we’re about to enter a new era.
Now comes the revolution, the digital revolution. Decades ago, around 2000-2010, the world was absolutely flipped with the rise of technology slowly seeping into our daily lives. This includes our country. In this digital revolution era, AI made its way by expanding tech startups such as Gojek, Tokopedia, and Bukalapak, with the integration of recommendation systems, fraud detection, and customer service chatbots. These upgrades towards technology made it easier for companies to appeal more towards their consumers as it takes and analyzes the data from our searches. This way, both parties are satisfied since one shows them items they might need or find interesting, while the other doesn’t need to go searching for too long to find their desired item. Think of it like a supermarket, except you have one smart cookie companion following your every step, being well versed in what you want, need, or like.
With these facts I bet you’re like “Whoa, that’s really amazing!”, or “huh, cool.” BUT we’re not done yet, it does not stop there. Get this, the government uses AI to enhance their cybersecurity and utilize it for better data analysis through the form of e-government platforms. Stay with me now, here are some examples; Satu Data Indonesia, SPBE (Sistem Pemerintahan Berbasis Elektronik), LAPOR! (Layanan Aspirasi dan Pengaduan Online Rakyat), KTP Elektronik (e-KTP), SIPD (Sistem Informasi Pemerintahan Daerah) and etc. The fact that I had to use “etc” goes to show just how much of a king AI really is.
Even during the pandemic, due to no physical contact becoming the norm, our government pulled out an ingenious idea and used AI to create an app used for Covid-19 contact tracing, vaccination tracking and mobility monitoring. It’s called PeduliLindungi if anyone curious about it. Main point is, AI played such a big role in our country during the early days of technology.
It is truly a blessing that humans are able to invent something so complex yet comprehensible for us to use it in many ways. Universities also began accelerating our country’s knowledge and human resource about machine learning and data science. Honourable mentions for the earliest application of AI in Indonesia includes Telkomsel for their chatbots, BCA and Mandiri banks for their fraud detection system.
Ah, we have finally reached the present day (2020-2025). How’s it going for Indonesia and AI? Well, Indonesia now has a grand plan that includes separating AI integration into 5 sectors namely Healthcare, Education, Bureaucracy, Industry & Manufacturing and Smart Cities. This is Indonesia’s first National Strategy on Artificial Intelligence called Stranas AI, aiming to run from 2020-2045. The premise of this strategy is to shift Indonesia’s resource-based economy into an innovation-driven one.
The status of AI in our country is… oh boy, visualize this, our veins that envelops everywhere in our body. It is absolutely like that. Deeply embedded into our system. Economically, AI has reigned over our financial technology & banking, fully geared up against fraud detection, the ability of credit scoring and better chatbot customer services. In e-commerce and retail, we’ve got personalized recommendations and supply chain management. Agriculture now has AI powered drones and sensors to aid our farmers. Healthcare has AI-assisted diagnosis tools completely easing the workload of doctors and nurses alike.
The thing with AI is, it just gets better and better. But this betterment towards AI progress each year doesn’t come out of nowhere. We got to tip our hats to the major players of AI in Indonesia. Nodeflux is one of them. Essentially being the first local company recognized as an official partner with NVIDIA’s Metropolis AI program. It is one of Indonesia’s leading AI startups. Yo, Sean… what is a startup? Don’t worry, I got you. The real definition is quite long but I’ll word it out in a way that’s understandable, they’re high paced businesses aimed for innovation. Sing our praises to them for such an achievement, it’s because of companies like these that help our country’s future progress with AI go beyond further.
We’ve almost reached the end. But before we proceed, I would like you to imagine owning an apple farm. Of course, with every harvest, there is always a bad apple, right? But with each harvest we learn from our mistakes and try to mitigate the chances of it ever happening again. It Is human nature for us to keep improving over and over. Every failure is a step forward. Don’t ever think of it as a setback, because it is those very setbacks that make us who we are.
Where am I going with this exactly? Hear me out, AI’s rapid growth also comes with its challenges. First of all, we are currently facing a talent shortage towards those who can tend to the seeds of our future, which are AI researchers and engineers. Secondly, data governance is also a problem as it poses concerns in the public eye about privacy breaching, security and regulations. Third, our infrastructure also needs upgrades to seek an improvement in AI computing resources and cloud. Oh, another question Sean, what’s cloud? Think of it like this, hardware + software + networking resources all stored in the internet. It’s like storing all of our food and drinks from the fridge into the sky. That’s why it’s called cloud. Smart naming dare I say. And fourth, the most controversial one of all. AI taking over jobs.
Back to the apple farm analogy, these challenges will surely have to be surmounted in an ethical and legal way. It doesn’t matter if it’s slowly or one at a time, it is in our nature to keep going, till success shows its open arms. That’s where we as the future generation come in. With all of the luxuries AI presents, we can’t get too comfortable with it to the point where there’s no one interested to learn about it. Never take our blessings for granted. It is a must to at least bat an eye towards this topic in our lives. Who knows, perhaps you, the very reader, may be the catalyst to solve our current problems with AI.
Concluding these huge chunks of texts, AI and Indonesia are still on an ongoing journey together. With AI exploding only recently, it left both a sweet and bitter taste to our people. Even with a late head start compared to the world, we manage to pull through and integrate this advancement into the heart of our land. I believe Indonesia has what it takes to become the number one leading Southeast Asia country in AI development. Big salutes to you sir/miss for going through this behemoth of an article. This might be my longest one, so I really appreciate the fact that you found it interesting. Until then, peace be upon you!